Dominique Manotti - Lorraine Connection

The assembled workers discuss the idea, it offers something concrete at last. Selling the stocks is a good idea, they’re worth more than the total owed on bonuses. Maybe, but locking in the managers … ‘We need to check we have the backup.’ ‘Management leaves us no choice. It’s one provocation after another. Anyone would think they’re trying to …’ ‘That’s what worries me.’

‘Look, we’ve got to act fast and decisively. We all go there together, we lock them in: one night will be enough, tomorrow morning, they’ll cave in. Look at the Korean in his car.’ Gives a little kick to the roof which clangs. They all see the terrified face again, the car rocking, the power of concerted action. ‘They’re afraid of us. Let’s make the most of it. If we don’t get their respect today, then tomorrow, they’ll close down and we’ll be left with nothing. We lock them in now. All those in favour?’

There follows no more than an instant’s indecision. Étienne raises his hand along with the whole first shift from packaging. All the rest of the hands go up. Aisha finds it hard to believe, but she’s voting to lock the managers in. While four men retrieve the computer and the boxes of files from the boot ( nothing that belongs to the company must leave the premises without our consent ), the delegation re-forms and places itself at the head of the procession. The small troop starts to advance in a relatively ordered manner. The car lies abandoned on its side, facing the gate, the boot gaping. The Korean still hasn’t budged.

Park, his face sallow, is clamped to his phone.

‘They’re on their way, they plan to occupy the offices … There’s going to be trouble.’

‘What kind of a damned stupid thing have you gone and done? It’s a disaster. Explain what’s going on.’

‘When I started here, I set up a system of bogus invoices so as to pay the Korean managers a relocation allowance …’

A roar from the other end of the phone. Quignard leaps to his feet, knocking over his chair. He bangs his fist down on his desk, making the brandy glasses jump and knocking over a vase of chrysanthemums, soaking the files sitting on the desk. Maréchal grabs the glasses, puts them out of danger, and rights the vase.

‘Delete the lot, for fuck’s sake, what are you waiting for?’

Tell him they tried to smuggle the computer out and that it’s in the hands of the strikers? Better to die.

‘The bookkeeper who deals with it isn’t in today, we don’t know where the files are, we can’t delete all the accounts …’ Park squeals like a frightened rabbit, and the line goes dead.

The management block, a cube of reflective glass with two steps up to the main entrance, a rather unimpressive glorified hangar, is only a few minutes’ walk away, but it’s enough to give them all time to think about what they’re doing. We’re venturing on to their territory, invading their space, barricading our bosses made of flesh and blood, pushing them around, locking them in with us, talking to them as equals. We’re disrupting the social order. At least for a while. So each step counts, we’ll remember each step. And they keep close together, in silent, closed ranks. The women bring up the rear, hanging back a little, anxious, hesitant — too many men, too close together. Some discreetly slip away, through the factory and across the waste ground.

Amrouche marches despite himself, borne along by those behind him. This is it, now, the explosion, the anger, my years of dread, the other side is so much stronger, they’ve always won, they’ll always win. Lambs to the slaughter. He leans towards Hafed.

‘We’ve got to stop all this, it’s going to be a disaster.’

‘I don’t understand why the management scumbags haven’t already all gone home. What are they playing at? We can’t do a thing.’

Nourredine, pushed forward by his comrades, stands in front of the door: locked. Tries to slide it open: jammed. He doesn’t have time to turn around before a surge from the back of the group, gathering momentum from row to row, lifts the men at the front off the ground and flings them against the glass door which gives way and shatters. A moment’s pause as Amrouche stumbles before ending up spreadeagled on the blue carpet amid shards of glass. Nourredine, his nose fractured and his face cut and bleeding, finds himself alone face to face with the Korean CEO who’s standing in the middle of the lobby, rigid and pale. A voice shouts: ‘Let’s drag them out of their hiding places and bring them down here.’ The men rush forward, trampling Amrouche underfoot, and disperse through the offices, flinging open doors, pulling the occupants out of their seats, half carrying them down to the lobby which gradually fills with panic-stricken suits. Winded, Amrouche has got to his feet and pushes the CEO towards the boardroom. He knows this room well, so many useless, never-ending discussions, those arseholes who never listen, and now … Hafed, slightly groggy, joins him. They bring the executives in one by one: ‘No, not all the workers, there isn’t room. Only the shop stewards, but we’ll keep the door open. Immediate payment of the bonuses, everyone knows why we’re here. We won’t allow anyone to leave until our demands are met, but let’s all calm down, we’re not hooligans.’

Nourredine is sitting on a chair in the lobby, leaning forward, trying to plug his bleeding nose with a roll of toilet paper. His eyes are closed, his hands covered in blood, his brain sluggish and his thoughts confused. Hafed crouches beside him.

‘Amrouche and I will deal with the management in the boardroom. You must get up to the offices. Do you hear me?’ Groan. ‘It’s important. Organise the occupation. Pickets on the doors, patrols in the factory and the offices. OK?’ Nourredine silently nods. Give the guys something to do. Then he repeats: ‘It’s important,’ and goes back inside the boardroom.

Quignard tilts his chair back into the upright position, sits down, eyes closed and makes himself breathe slowly, regularly, exhaling through his mouth, his large hands placed flat on the desk. Maréchal has picked up his glass and is taking little sips to disguise his urge to laugh while waiting for Quignard to regain his composure.

‘So now what’s he done, your pyromaniac firefighter?’

‘This is a nightmare, Antoine. I left them less than an hour ago. They were setting up a meeting to start negotiations, only now the workers are invading the managers’ offices.’

‘It’s already happened to other bosses, and it didn’t kill them.’

‘Maybe, but Park takes the opportunity to tell me that he’s siphoning off money via a system of bogus invoices to pay his gang of useless Korean managers bonuses. And to make matters worse, the evidence is there for all to see in the company’s accounts … If some bright spark decides to snoop around … The factory has to be evacuated.’ Quignard reaches for the telephone. ‘I’m calling the superintendent …’

Maréchal halts his hand in mid-air.

‘Don’t do that. You’ll end up with a massive fight, and the cops won’t have the resources to deal with it. It takes time to get the riot police out, and you have to be able to give good reasons.’

The two men drink in silence. Quignard broods.

‘Pyromaniac firefighter you said. That’s an idea, the fire brigade. A fire breaks out and everyone’s evacuated.’ Renewed silence. The two men drink. Quignard mutters to himself: ‘Especially as there’s no danger of those shit-stirrers from the insurance company poking their noses in.’ Then Maréchal, who’s finished his drink, gets up.

‘Karim Bouziane has set up a barbecue on the waste ground behind the factory. With the strike on, he must have been doing a roaring trade throughout the afternoon. Right, I’ll let you get on, I’m going home. Thanks for the brandy.’